What Is Success? (Ravishly.com)

"In the early 2000s, my husband and I earned multiple degrees at top-tier schools. During this time, we came to believe — as did many of our friends and mentors — that achievement and career trump family and geography, and that "success" is what happens when you follow job opportunities. In this archetypal scenario, you take the best (read: most prestigious) job irrespective of work-life balance, set up anywhere, and complete the upward trajectory set forth for you when you began your higher education endeavor. Surrounded by other high achievers, ‘normal’ was often internalized as climbing ever-higher rungs on an endless ladder, whereby achievement is the hallmark of purpose, of meaning, of value. To be worthwhile was to be productive in quantifiable and tangible ways. To question that ethos was a failure of one’s education and of one’s potential, particularly as a woman of high aspirations."